Love And Art Among The Damned
by Flameboi
Summary: A little snippet from the life of a vampire, probably not terribly good, read it anyhow. I think it's funny, but that's probably just because I'm odd.


The thing that always made him laugh, when he glanced through his scrapbook, were the accounts of his disappearance. The theories ranged from kidnapping to murder to an arranged disappearance because he knew he was dying of AIDS, but the sources seemed to concur that it was a shame to lose yet another bright young star from the world of art. It angered him, too, in a slight way, because while the theories were all true to one degree or another, they concluded falsely: Remy St. Michel wasn't gone, not in the sense of his talent being forever silenced. Now, he was simply underground. Underground, and consigned to permanent obscurity, was where you were forced to exist, when you hadn't aged in twenty years, yet alone died of what your doctors said would kill you, not to mention when your current artistic medium happened to be as non-traditional as Remy's. 

He'd died, of course. In fact, he'd been first kidnapped, and then murdered, too, which Remy found oddly romantic, though, he didn't dwell on it overmuch, since those first nights were more or less a blank, and what little he could recall added up to more pain than even he wanted to ever think of experiencing again: way beyond S&M, thank you. Clawing your way up starving and bloodcrazed with dirt in your mouth and every nerve on fire from your own grave was not a pleasant experience; Remy sometimes joked that he'd broken more than a nail, try all his fingers, but, when he woke up screaming from another nightmare as the sun set, he really found it less than amusing.

Still, Remy was grateful to the Sabbat, and to his Sire Adrian; without them, he would have been dead in the real, no coming back, sense, sometime in '87 or possibly '88, if he'd really hung on. Adrian Colby wasn't much of an artiste himself, really, but he was a superb collector, of art, and, occassionally, when he could get away with it, artists as well. During the terrifying nights, three of them, before the final nightmare, tied and blindfolded in the cellar, Remy had had nothing, no food, no comfort, except water to keep him alive, and the drink, once a night, thick and copper cloying, and Adrian's voice in the dark, in his mind, too, telling him what was happening, why, how to heal himself with the blood. Now, Remy knew that if he hadn't caught the trick of it as quickly as he had, Adrian would have simply killed him, with some regrets to be sure, but killed him all the same, because he would no more embrace a childe less than physically perfect than he would hang a black velvet Jesus over the mantle. 

Adrian liked things beautiful, which was only proper for a Toreador antitribu. The Sabbat didn't appreciate him properly, certainly most of them couldn't come close to understanding his vision, but his talents ran to things beyond art, and those skills, particularly with scalpel and acid or electrical wires placed just so for maximum pain, were considered useful when applied to the enemy; otherwise, Adrian was left largely on his own, with Remy. Remy of course, loved his Sire; the vaulderie he shared with all the members of his pack, of course, as did Adrian, but that was once a month, and he fed from Adrian, and Adrian from him, near as often as they did from the mortals. Adrian had suggested he not mention this to the others, the sort of suggestion that carried a silent, 'If they don't kill you, I'll make you wish they had,' behind the words and the smile and the beautiful green eyes.

Remy wasn't, hadn't ever been, stupid: careless, reckless, never stupid, and he supposed that theoretically impossible for Sabbat or not, he was more or less blood bound; he didn't much care. Immortality without love and passion would be as bland and horrifying as without art, and when your passion ran through your fangs instead of your cock, well, you did what worked. For their tenth anniversary, Remy had presented Adrian with a spectacular creation, an underground chapel filled with dozens of sculptures, each more vivid than the last, and preserved in laquer to keep down the decay: Adrian had been thrilled, especially with the vivisected nun (formerly a crack whore -art is so uplifting!) held in the throes of eternal agony with just the right expression. The slow decomposition was simply part of the transforming process of Remy's sculpture, and he and Adrian still visited the work now and then, usually when they were feeling particularly romantic; on a few occasions they'd even brought a pair of mortals with them, gagged of course to protect sensitive ears from annoying screams, a midnight lovers picnic. 

Remy's current project was less vast in scope, but still, he was proud of it, emulating Adrian's own skills as it were; less of a visionary, to be sure, his Sire was none the less a master of technique, and was pleased with Remy's progress in flaying the curbside preacher for eleven nights running now, managing to keep him alive throughout without 'cheating' by ghouling him. Remy thought he might make a sort of modern chaplet from the skin, illuminated in the old medeival style, for Adrian. Still, it was messy work, and now, with his canvas once again unconscious, Remy licked at the drying blood, eliciting an unaware moan, let himself have just a sip, a nightcap, and strolled from the basement studio to the nearby bathroom, stripped himself, and stepped into the shower, to wash the blood off flawless ivory skin and, more irritatingly, from his long hair, the blonde for the moment dyed auburn, but there, in the rush of water, the blood washes away, and he is clean once more. Perfect.

Footsteps over the sound of the water, and Remy smiled; his eyes glinted gold and his fangs flashing in a primal grin when the glass door slid aside, and he was wrapped in the cold arms of love, held close, as Adrian stepped in to join him. Green eyes drilled down into Remy's, and Adrian's voice stroked along his mind's ear like foreplay, *My Beauty. Yes?* Adrian kissed Remy's throat, and Remy whispered the only answer he would ever give his father-lover, when he asked this, "Please," and was rewarded with the slide of fangs into his flesh, and ecstasy a moment later as Adrian swallowed his undead blood, raised his wrist to Remy's mouth so he could return the favor. Beneath the streaming water, gone from hot to tepid and then icy, unnoticed, they stood, uncaring of anything but the completion of the circuit, the vampire's lovemaking, minutes, longer, time meaning nothing.

Finally, though, it was done but the licking of the punctures, and then, that too, and healed, glowing, still one, mind in mind and hand in hand, Remy, Adrian, were out of the shower and ascending the stairs in bathrobes, to dress. *Where, tonight?* asked Remy, and got Adrian's usual reply, *What do you wish?* and Remy shrugged, *I'm in the mood for Chinese.* Adrian's laugh was golden sparkles down Remy's spine, and his telepathy, *Well, then, we're off to Chinatown, my Beauty.* Remy couldn't help but smile, "You're so good to me," he spoke aloud, and was rewarded with Adrian's voice, aloud as well as in his mind this time, "Yes, I know." 


End file.
